Abandon your doubts; embrace the chaos

So you know this scene, right? There’s been a terrible mudslide, and a woman’s house has been swept down the hills and resides in pieces in a gully. One of her grandchildren is missing, as is Tuffy, the dog. Smoke rises from the ruins. You can hear a helicopter overhead.

She is interviewed on a local TV news channel. She’s asked about the tragedy. She says, “I believe everything happens for a reason.”

In one sense, that’s true. A combination of steady rain, unstable soil conditions and suboptimal construction techniques caused the house to fall down. Almost everything has a reason, even if the reason is not immediately obvious.

But that’s not what she means. She means that this was destined to happen, and that its happening represents a deity-sent challenge tailored to her needs. One door is closing and another door is opening.

It is my experience that, sometimes a door closes and that’s kind of it. Not to get morbid, but all our lives will end like that — a door will close, and guess what? Maybe it’s a challenge to play the find-an-afterlife game. I have said many times that, if I discover an afterlife after I die, I will immediately become an adherent of the relevant religion. Heck, I’ll volunteer to go haunt somebody and present them with evidence of lush gardens, willing sexual partners and little wings for all.

But that’s hardly the point.

It is also my experience that some things don’t happen for a reason. Some challenges are just too great to overcome. The citizens of Aleppo, Syria, for instance — what cosmic lesson are they being taught? Perhaps the utility of getting the hell out.

“When they bombed our home and killed our family, we realized that everything happens for a reason. Then we took a leaky inflatable boat to Greece, which then overturned and here I am, just about to drown, wondering what, precisely, the reason is. Perhaps I will see —”

Or maybe God is just sadistic. There’s a whole lot of evidence that’s true. So many natural disasters, so many diseases, so many corrupt governments — all of them there, of course, for a reason. And the reason is: God hates us.

So maybe best not to depend on that fellow for spiritual growth.

(I am aware that Stephen Colbert says that bacon is the evidence that God loves us. I think it’s evidence that pigs love us, but whichever — bacon is always the last challenge on the way to a meatless diet.)

I’m sure that the belief in destiny guided by a benign hand is comforting. I would never deny anyone comfort; I’m not going to lecture the bereaved. And, in the sense that “everything happens for a reason” means “practice acceptance and move forward,” I’m fine with it.

But I do believe it’s time for all of us to embrace randomness. It’s not that scary. Stuff happens. Period. We can dart about the edges anticipating stuff — try not to build your home on a steep hillside — but your plans are mostly imaginary road maps.

“God never gives you more than you can handle” is another one I’ve heard too much. Take that soon-to-be-deceased Aleppo refugee mentioned above: God just gave him more than he could handle. Fortune is distributed unequally, and luck plays a big role in everything. Being nice to people helps, but it doesn’t mean you’re going to get only as much as you can handle.

A lot of Iraq veterans got more than they could handle too, not so much on the battlefield as right here at home. Their unique immersion experience, and the human horrors that accompanied it, made them incompatible with the fantasy world of American consumerism. Some can’t handle it. God is screwing with them.

Either that, or God really is paying attention to each individual and setting up a series of affirming obstacles that He knows you can overcome. Home foreclosed, job gone, kids into drugs? Well, God has decided that you can handle that. Praise God.

The idea that “God never gives you more than you can handle” postulates a God who feels suffering is good for you. That which does not kill me makes me stronger. Except, not always. Sometimes it leaves me weak and unable to function.

I do believe in prayer, though. I think praying atheists are an interesting subset of spiritual secularists. I mean, we’re here for a reason. You must handle us, because God gave us to you. We’re right where we should be. We are staying in the moment. We are drinking pomegranate juice.

“Just about as much right,” said the Duchess, “as pigs have to fly; and the m—” But here, to Alice’s great surprise, jcarroll@sfchronicle.com